Museum celebrates Port’s 50th with tie-dye
For lovers of the 1960s, there’s a chance to break out the tie-dye on Friday.
Port Colborne Historical and Marine Museum is hosting a 60s Shindig to celebrate the city’s 50th anniversary.
Although Port Colborne’s anniversary was technically at the beginning of the year, the museum’s education programmer, Abbey Stansfield, said staff knew this event was coming up and thought it would be the perfect opportunity.
The event is part of the Museum of Niagara Association’s First Friday series in which the seven participating museums across the region host an event showcasing their area.
“It’s an opportunity to give people who might work during our opening hours a chance to see the exhibits and see the museum,” Stansfield said.
Keeping with the ’60s theme, the museum grounds will be filled with activities such as giant lawn Twister, a glow-in-the-dark bubble station and hula-hoop exercises. She also said there will be a tie-dye artist, a DJ playing ’60s music and a photo booth complete with props and a backdrop.
“We’re going to have a small display of what Port Colborne looked like in the ’60s,” Stansfield said.
The display will look like the other displays in the museum, including pictures and descriptions. She said the images and information weren’t too difficult to track down because of the archives on site.
Although dressing up for the event is optional, Stansfield said it’s all part of the fun. As an added bonus, Mayor John Maloney will be picking out the best costume of the night and awarding a prize: two tickets to the movies with popcorn and drinks.
Film will be a part of the activities on event night, too. Even though she was restricted to a three-hour time limit and coming up with non-copyrighted material, Stansfield said she found some ’60s media to showcase.
“You’ll be able to see documentaries of what they thought of space travel and that kind of thing. And fashion,” she said.
There are also some educational clips she found. She said it’s fascinating to see what kind of video was being put out during that time.
“One of them was for lunchroom manners,” she said with a laugh.
Stansfield found all of these different activities and material through researching what people did in that time period while also keeping it as local as possible.
The event takes place from 7 p.m. until 10 p.m. It’s a 19 years and older event because of alcohol sales. The Smokin’ Buddha will be selling food.